Well hello there! I still have a blog!

It has been so long since I have posted. It hasn't been that I haven't wanted to. In fact some nights I want to quite a bit. Some nights the words don't come. Sometimes I don't have anything interesting to say. Mostly I haven't wanted to share the thoughts I have had. I've been working through a lot in the last year, and it's been hard.

Honestly I wouldn't have written tonight if it weren't for someone commenting yesterday on one of my last posts.

I realized just how much I missed writing.

So here I sit, listening to music and writing.

As for what has been going on...

I quit doing DDPYoga, and for a lot of reasons. While I enjoyed the workouts, he doesn't do a proper warm up or emphasize proper form. Form is so key when doing yoga so you don't injure yourself. It doesn't matter if it is the most basic poses or a handstand. I got sick of the changing of the names of the poses, it served no purpose other than to assuage the guys who can't stand more feminine words. And the Facebook became a cult. If you weren't eating organic, locally grown, and following the meal plan to a T you were berated. I could go on for a while on it all, but I won't. To put it simply I am putting it behind me. I am going to my local gym and the gym in my complex, eating healthier, and am happy.

I had a lot of mental struggles in the last year and half to two years. Between the death of a childhood friend, parents in and out of the hospital and some of my own issues it was hell. To the point it was affecting my work. The biggest problem was solved when I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Once I got on my meds it felt like I had walked out of a fog. I could think and focus again. I had energy again. It was amazing!

As for the rest of my quest for health, I may blog about it more at some point. I'm not really ready to trudge down that rabbit hole yet. Especially tonight.

So, I will focus on happy things.

Next week I am going on vacation and we are taking my nephew for a week. I know he is beyond excited, and honestly so are we. He is a growing nerd, and we need to encourage it. We have a lot of plans, but the highlights are taking him to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Denver Comic Con.

I got my serger sewing machine up and running. There are so many possibilities right now! Clothing for me to wear to work. Costumes for the ren faire, and cosplaying at the comic cons.

I got a promotion at work into a different department. I have so much less stress it is unbelievable, and I really like what I do right now. Yay!

Also coming up are other get togethers with friends and family, my birthday, and general summer fun.

And with that, I'm off to bed. Night all!

Live Long and Prosper

I hate that we only truly appreciate the beauty of someone's soul, their vision and talents only when they are gone. While I have always liked and admired Leonard Nimoy, I had no idea how talented he was outside of his acting. Poetry, music and especially photography were in his list of many other talents.

Leonard Nimoy has been an advocate for body acceptance for years. The Full Body Project (warning, link has nudity) he published in 2007 is a celebration of beautiful plus size women. Celebrating themselves, each other, and their perfectly imperfect bodies. It is beautiful.

I have never seen women who are even remotely close to my size/type in print before. Or at least not in a way that made them look as beautiful as they are. Leonard Nimoy captured it. It brought me to tears reading some of what he has said.

"...and I thought there’s something going on in the culture that’s happening here that I became conscious of, that women... There’s a gigantic industry built around telling women they all look wrong. You’ve got to buy these pills; you’ve got to go on a diet; you have to get this surgery; you have to do all these things to try to look more like the models who are wearing the clothes, and it’s a gigantic... It’s a cruel thing, I think." -Leonard Nimoy

It is. You don't need that diet. You don't need to fit society's definition of beautiful and sexy. You don't need to be skinny. You don't need to wait to start living your life. If you wait, look at how much passes you by!

You are beautiful.

You are sexy.

You are perfect as you are.

I am beautiful.

I am sexy.

I am perfect as I am. Right now. On this day. At this moment. And for everyday from now on.

While he was an amazing actor and Spock will live forever, I will remember Leonard Nimoy for being an advocate for body acceptance and truly seeing all the beauty. RIP Leonard Nimoy.

I threw out my scale!

Yep. You read that right.

I threw out my scale!

Why, you ask? Primarily I am sick of letting my life be dictated by a number. Letting my days, good or bad, be determined by what that little number says about me. If I had it in the house I would be tempted to step on. So it is gone. My husband threw it away this afternoon.

After doing much reading and research, I am done with the weight loss industry. I am tired of trying to reach the right number and then I can finally be happy and live my life. Hell with that. I am tired of waiting to live my life, I want to live it now. So I am.

I just finished a book called "Health At Every Size" by Dr. Linda Bacon. She writes up results from her study and others regarding the long-term effectiveness of diets, weight-loss, plans and the Health At Every Size philosophy. Basically every study that comes out that says being fat is bad is paid for by the weight loss industry. Turns out, that is not necessarily the case. Being heavier has a lot of benefits. You are less sick, there are fewer cases of cancer, and it is not a good predictor of heart disease as everyone thinks. It turns the philosophy we have been taught all our lives on it's head. You don't have to take my word for it. Read her book and look through her sources. It is pretty compelling evidence. There was also a blog published on the Scientific American webpage talking about similar ideas. 

The book I read also talks about enjoying life. Doing the things you love. If you are going to workout, do it because you (and your body) want to do it. Also do things you love to do. If you love swimming but hate running, why do something you hate? Enjoy every bite of food in your mouth. Revel in it. Taste it. Smell it. Feel it. Eat anything. No food is inherently good or bad, but some ARE healthier. When you listen to your body, and I am finding this true after just a couple weeks, you start listening to your hungry and full signals. I am eating less, eating more often (so I don't get grumpy), and enjoying every bite. Dr. Bacon goes into a lot of detail about all of this, and it is hard to explain. But simply when you enjoy your food and take time to truly savor every bite, it does your body good. There have been studies that have come out recently that show that when you are not only grateful for the food you are about to it, but savor your food, you absorb more nutrients. The minute you put a "bad" connotation in front of any food (soda, chips and burgers anyone?) you feel guilt and shame for eating those foods. You also absorb less nutrients. So if you are going to eat soda, burgers and fries, don't feel guilty. If you savor, enjoy and love the food you eat your body will get more out of it. Of course, their are foods that are more nutrient dense than others.

That's not to say coming to this conclusion has been easy. Do I still want to wear smaller clothes and all that? Yes! Brainwashing isn't undone overnight. But I also want to be free to do what I want. I have been keeping up on my yoga and getting into some more advanced poses. And having seen posts in recent weeks of some very curvaceous ladies doing some incredibly hard yoga poses, I am INSPIRED! I can be a curvy yogi. I AM a curvy yogi.

Did a more advanced pigeon pose out of the blue a few weeks back.

I have also started going back to belly dance classes. And I love it! I have fun. I have met some wonderful new women. And once I get back in the swing of it, I will feel graceful again. Being out of practice sucks. I also feel sexy and empowered and powerful when dancing. And my waist size dwarfs the other ladies there by quite a bit! And I don't care. The first night I went we had to dance with veils and I was kindly loaned one. I had never danced with a veil before so I was off to the side playing with it, dancing and getting a feel for the movement and flow. Several of the women looked over shocked, some looked jealous and like they wanted to join me and some just smiled. I didn't care. I let my inner 5-year old out to dance. I have to get over my body image issues just to walk in the dang door of the dance studio. After that, I will dance with a veil and shimmy my hip scarf all I want. It is glorious to dance!

So this is long and rambling post, my apologies. I am sure this will be a journey to learn to let a lot of what I have been taught go. However, the confidence I have gained in myself and my body the last few weeks has been incredible though. So I will keep doing my yoga and learning handstands and cooking delicious food, and love every second of it.

Non-scale Victories!

I haven't posted because I have felt I don't have much to post about. I am doing my DDPYoga 3-4 times a week and going to a yoga class at the gym in my apartment complex on Mondays and Wednesdays. I keep going because I know I will feel better, and I truly am. But most days nothing exciting happens that I feel the need to blog about.

Then there's how tired I am after work. That is another gripe entirely though.

In this last week, and especially today, I have had some awesome non-scale victories that I wanted to share! The first is I found a new website to order clothes from you can not only order off the rack but have customized (either by size or style/length) for a minimal charge. The best part is they go from size 0-36W for ALL of their styles. I am in desperate need of new work clothes. Between being on a strict budget for several years and the chemicals from work eating away at my wardrobe, I couldn't put it off any longer. So, a long story short, when I took my measurements to have my clothes custom made I found I had lost 9" between my waist, hips and thighs! I was ecstatic! I knew my clothes were more loose, but I thought it was because the fabric was stretching and dying. Nope! I'm shrinking!

Then tonight in my yoga class I was suddenly able to do two positions I haven't been able to before. The first is a simple pose, you sit on the floor with one leg extended straight in front of you and the other pulled up so your foot is resting on your inner thigh. You lean over and try to gently hold your foot. When I started DDPYoga in July I was INCHES from even touching my foot. Last week I was barely brushing my toes with my fingers.

Tonight I HELD my foot around the middle. No grunting. No straining. I just leaned over and was able to grasp it. The grin on my yoga teacher's face was awesome. I can only imagine what mine was like.

The other is a style of squat. You stand on your tip toes and go into a squat. As you reach the bottom you spread your knees and place your elbows on the insides of your knees. It challenges your balance like you wouldn't believe. I have barely been able to start to squat much less get anywhere close to putting my elbows near my knees. Tonight I gracefully sank into the full squat. Elbows on the insides of my knees. My butt resting on my heels. AND I DIDN'T FALL ON MY BUTT!!!!

The scale isn't moving much, but that's ok. I am feeling differences in my clothes. Seeing and feeling muscles I haven't had in a long time. The other night while getting ready for bed I was brushing my hair and noticed the muscles in my shoulders. It was a moment of, "Oh! Hello deltoids! Nice to see you again. Where have you been hiding?" So I think I am exchanging fat for muscle.

My muscles aren't cramping like they used to.

My back spasms have almost stopped. They only happen on really stressful days (either due to work or traffic).

I am feeling more energetic.

Overall I am happy with where things are going right now. There's still a lot to work on. My eating habits especially. Although considering how I used to be, I am not going to tear myself down now. I have come a long long ways.

Enough rambling for now. I will post pictures soon. Thanks for reading. Good night.

Back in the groove

Aside from packing and lifting moving boxes I haven't really worked out since mid-July. Now that the move is done it feels good to be getting back in the groove and finding a new normal. Today I went upstairs to the little gym in our new apartment complex and started the couch to 5K again. I am doing the Hot Chocolate Run again in Denver this year and need to get back to where I can at least walk/run it again. I really like the view from our gym too. Love mountain views.

I also started doing my DDPYoga again. I can sure tell I haven't done it in a while. My body has been aching and hurting. I didn't realize how much good it had been doing me. There have also been notices posted around for free classes in our workout area from a local gym that is free with our rent. Mondays and Wednesday is a yoga class at 6:30pm. I am going to give that a shot this week as well. See how I like the teacher and all that. I'm excited about it.

Overall I am really happy at the moment. Even though we are in a temporary apartment while we wait some repairs to be completed on ours, I really like the new complex. It is hard living out of boxes and not knowing where everything is packed, but we are making it work.

As for staying focused on my workouts and just getting healthier I had some big motivation in July. My Dad was in the hospital with an infection in his leg. I don't know how much of it is or isn't related to his diabetes, but it was kind of a wake up call for me. I know how bad diabetes is. It runs in the family and my best friend died from complications of it. But it hadn't hit home just how devastating it can be. Dealing with infections and weakened immune systems is not fun. I am doubly determined to get the weight off so I don't have to face this disease myself....or at least for a VERY long time.

That's it for now. I will hopefully be posting more as things settle in and I start working on other projects to post about. Such as my jewellery and other crafts...not just working out. While I don't want weight loss to be the sole focus of my life and have that be all that I talk about, but I know it will be. I need to make my health and happiness a priority. So along with my weight loss will be the things that make me happy. Being crafty, being nerdy, and being me.

Goal Setting

In starting DDP yoga I have listened to Diamond Dallas Page's e-book, "Own Your Life" several times now. One of the biggest things he talks about to achieving ANY dream, but especially focusing on weight loss, is goal setting. This is nothing new to me. Setting goals is how you know you want to get stuff done. However, I hadn't thought about it until he put it like this. "You have to know where if you ever hope to get there." Goals are a roadmap that tell us how far we have to go, and show us how far we have come. Taking pictures and measurements along the way help remind us of how far we have come when we have had a bad day. Or realizing that for the first time in years (yes, years) I can touch the ground with my hands almost completely flat on the floor. Anyways, I figured I should write down my goals and put them out there. If I don't write them down then they aren't real. At least that is how it is working in my mind.

There is a small rule for my goals. They have to follow SMACKDOWN. Nope, not listening to a former wrestler at all. But here is what it stands for:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Compatible
Keep it going - do it like a ritual
Do it
Own it
Write it down
NOW

Short Term Goals

1) Lose 30 pounds
2) Run a mile without walking
3) Eat 3 servings of fruits and veggies a day
4) Try a "meatless Monday"

Medium Term Goals

1) Lose 75 pounds
2) Be able to get into the first part of crow pose - my knees to my elbows and start balancing

3) Run a 5K without stopping to walk.

Long Term Goals

1) Goal weight of 160 pounds. I am being flexible with this and seeing where I am happy at.
2) Be able to do a supported headstand

I will be updating my goal list as I go. Revising/editing some goals. Adding new ones. Marking dates as they are completed.

I have decided to not put a timeline on these, especially the ones that pertain to weight loss goals. I stress myself out enough without adding a timeline in to it. And some months are great, others aren't. And I don't want to feel like if I have a bad month that I have screwed up my timeline and have failed. Basically I am wanting to set myself up to succeed, not fail.

Thanks for reading.

Time To Try Something New

Life and stress have been taking their toll on me. I am ashamed to say I have gained back all that I lost prior to my wedding plus some. I have been trying to find inspiration and my way in general the last few months. I have been feeling lost in general and not just in regards to my weight. Pretty much every day, if not several times per day, I would watch one particular YouTube video. It went viral a while back, and I loved it. I still find it so inspirational.

I keep telling myself that if Arthur could do it, I could. I have had so much trouble finding time to get to the gym. After taking my husband to work since we have one car, working, picking him up and dealing with traffic I was spent for the day. I didn't want to drive back across town to go to my preferred gym location and swim. The location I go to is the only one that has a pool. So something needed to change.

One night after watching Arthur's video I decided to start reading more about DDP Yoga. I like yoga anyways and something lower impact would be good for me. Well a few weeks back and bit the bullet. I bought one of the combo packs to try and see how it goes. Marshall has even said he is willing to give it a shot.

It has been a week and I have worked out every day so far. The workouts are awesome. I think the longest one is 40 minutes. Most are around 25-35 minutes. It is very easy for me to work that in to my day. And while I am not a wrestling fan and all that, I like DDP's style. Do whatever you can and just keep trying. You will get better and stronger and be able to do more. And I am!

I am getting into positions easier, holding them deeper, having better balance and getting my hear rate into the zone easier with each work out.

On the TeamDDP website they encourage you to take beginning photos just to show yourself how far you have come. I have taken them and at some point I may share them here. I don't know. I am ashamed and embarrassed to look at them. But it is motivation for me to make myself healthier.